Alex Lawler

An article I had published on the Art Month blog.

Alex Lawler’s artist talk at Flinders Street Gallery on Saturday March13th was the first time I had seen this new work and only had time for quick walk through before Alex was introduced by the gallery’s owner. I was able to deduce however that Lawler was well versed in Modernist movements of the last 60 years.

For emerging artists, talking about their work can be a double-edged sword; it gives the artist a chance to extract from their work ideas that are most important to you, and also a chance to gauge from the audience which works or ideas interest them. However, the emerging artist is also very vulnerable; perhaps their oeuvre is not all that extensive and they have not really found themselves as artists yet and scrutinising questions can easily find them wanting. Also interesting about this scenario is the fact that viewers could encounter the artist before the work, whereas before the emergence of these artist talks, their personality was absent, removed from the experience of their work. However there is a lot to like about Alex Lawler. He’s young, charismatic, and well read. He has European breeding, an affecting but not overwhelming sense of confidence, and the ability to succinctly communicate quite complicated ideas with seeming ease.

Three or four major themes are situated in his work. The carpet paintings speak to a Post-Minimalist tendency, which strove to incorporate the reductionist underpinings of Minimalism, but to explore more fully elements of materiality. For the Post-Minimalists,carpet would have provided a tactile response from the “body ego”,perhaps as Lawler suggested, the sensation of walking barefoot on carpet. Particle board provides another departure point in terms of materiality. These works, which explore High art and design colour theories, are displayed at a twisted angle, a reference to Mondrian and Malevich; and Lawler aptly posits, why wouldn’t or shouldn’t a painting look as good at that angle? One of the major works in the exhibition (coincidentally it was purchased by Art Bank), is -Minimalist exploration. Sixteen squares are positioned in a square, but are all slightly askew. This softening of the strict geometry of seminal artists like Carl Andre complements the tonal qualities of the individual compartments.

An intriguing element of this show was the paintings of cigarette packets. The soft, crumpled form that one associates with a pack ofMarlboro Lights has been flattened onto the canvas, and the design aesthetic spotlighted. These could be design mock-ups for anything,airline logos, playing cards, cardboard juice containers, yet there is something that makes them recognizable as cigarette packets.

Perhaps the most furtive ground treaded by Lawler in this show is his inclusion of utilitarianism as a fundamental concept in the work. His vodka bar is based on seriality and reminds me of Donald Judd, yet once again the choice of materials differentiates Lawler’s piece. As I walked into the gallery I was surprised to see a take away coffee container sitting on the polystyrene cinder blocks, and even some brochures. But was reassured when it became clear that these were Lawler’s possessions, and he was indeed subconsciously stressing the functionality of this work. The utopian ideals of Modernist designers perhaps coming to fruition, and just up the road on Flinders St.

My major criticism of Lawler’s show is a lack of focus, but perhaps that should not be discouraged in a young artist. He alluded to thefact that he worked on all of these works simultaneously over a six month period, whereas perhaps he should have focused on fewer ideas and considered them for longer.

His short and sharp speech, to a disappointingly small, but appreciative crowd, covered all the bases. He discussed the title and premise of the exhibition, chronicled his Samstag Award and plans to study in London; he spoke of the discourse between speculative and functionalist thought taking place in his work. He surmised effectively his raison d’etre, that the questions that arise during the production of his work are the reason that he wants to produce art.

Comparitive Analysis - Does Ray Charles Shine?

Australian film makers beat the bio-pic fad by almost a decade with Scott Hick's Shine (1996). So how does this film rate against the mega blockbuster Ray (Taylor Hackford, 2004). Both films focus on characters who struggle against formidable odds. Ray Charles, obviously was blind, but also fought heroin and alcohol addictions. David Helfgott, suffers a mental breakdown as a young man and is later diagnosed as having schizoaffective disorder. Both are talented pianists but encounter trials and tribulations throughout their lives. David in particular, is fighting not only his illness, but memories of his stubborn, selfish, abusive father. Charles, on the other hand, is aided by memories of his insistent mother who inspires him to remain independent despite his handicap.

Interestingly, Ray Charles, as we all know, went onto become one of the most significant recording artists of the 20th century, while David Helfgott, while he still tours worldwide, probably would have lived out his days quietly with his wife, having flown under the radar of most Australians. I believe this point is significant. Australians love(d) this film even though they had probably never heard of Helfgott. He is the un-sung hero, a character who didn't get too successful (I'm referring here to the all too common 'tall poppy' syndrome), a construction that Australians love to identify with. They leave the cinema feeling great, they have seen Helfgott suffer with adversity and triumph, but not too much. (Of course, Scott Hicks, can only create a film in accordance with Helfgott's life, he couldn't fictionalise him becoming one of the world's most recognisable stars; what I'm suggesting is that Helfgott's story resonates because that outcome didn't eventuate).

Anyway. just some thoughts.

Big Fag Press

An article I had published on the Art Month Blog

I don’t know much about DIY printing techniques, or any printing techniques for that matter. I have friends in the business, but oddly my curiosity has never really been sparked past a vague curiosity. That changed on Saturday afternoon. I knew what to expect of every other artist talk/video screening/dealer presentation that I had on the agenda for the 13th, but this was the odd one out. I had heard of BFP (just like Big Friendly Giant, right?) somewhere in the ether but had never really checked them out.

I don’t know, perhaps I had envisaged big, bald, butch guys wearing overalls, sweating and laughing over a printing press, their moustaches sharp and bristly and imposing. But this should have been nothing to be afraid of. After all, A A Bronson is a pretty sweet dude, and he is big, and he is gay, and he does lots of printing.

Maybe it was the oftentimes sickly sweet idea of the utopian DIY collective.

BFP really deserves more attention and congratulations. Their alignment with the Slow Food movement seems apt. The BFP encourage an empowering educational experience. The process may be slower than more industrial techniques, and the output of the machine may not be as

efficient or bountiful, it may even be more expensive, but there is a really appealing grassroots element to what they can do. And the results are outstanding.

The approach of those at Big Fag Press is to view the completed product as a souvenir, a way of capturing someone’s ephemeral art practice. They describe the joys of working with each artist from the outset of the project right through to it’s completion, a relationship that is absent from a great deal of more industrial techniques. This removal of alienation between client and producer is imperative to what they do, and allows a great deal of flexibility and improvisation. And the effects are evident. Obstacles can become creative goldmines; for instance it is obviously cheaper to print using fewer colours, so a lot of the output take the form of striking monochrome posters. Importantly, the client’s presence can radically alter the end product. Unforeseen contingencies can be straightened out on the spot with all the parties present, and this creative environment can take projects to places the client would never have expected. A few minds are always better than one.

Saturday the 13th of March saw Lucas from Big Fag Press address a full house at CrossArts Projects in Kings Cross. BFP are part of a group show entitled ‘Hurry-Hurry: Radical Printmaking’ which shows work as diverse as posters for Good God: Small Club right through to election
posters for Jakarta, Indonesia. This sort of event cannot but leave one feeling inspired. Printmaking, ultimately does not cost a lot of money, and may not take that much time; yet the results can be quite stunning.

Archibald 2010

An article I had published on Concrete Playground.

The Archibald is to art writers what a solar eclipse is to human vision. Without fail, it captures the attention of art journalists all over the country. Some writers quickly articulate their dislike and even distrust of the prize (perhaps there is elitism here?). Other writers are like moths to the flame, keen to interject on any controversy that prevails. This year, that controversy seems to be circulating around the number of female artists (just seven) that have been selected in the final spread.

I wonder what JF Archibald envisaged of the prize way back in 1921. From the outset it has been controversial; stoushes have gone on over definitions of portraiture, subject matter and the profiles of the artists themselves. But try to ignore all that. These are artistic depictions of those deemed to be important Australians, by some of our most distinguished painters. Winning turns someone’s life on its head, and at the same time sends the price of their work through the proverbial roof. This year that person is Sam Leach (who also took out the concurrent Wynne Prize for Proposal for landscaped cosmos) with his portrait of comedian Tim Minchin, topping a list of 34 finalists whittled down from 849 entries. Go down to the AGNSW, have a look, and pick your own winner.

Missed Tutorial.

I missed the tutorial this week, though I was present for both the lecture and the screening. The showing of Mad Max was timely, because I have just started research for a short piece of writing on Shaun Gladwell. Gladwell was chosen for the Venice Biennale of 2009 for his work MaddestMaximvs. Gladwell has spoken about his preconceptions of the outback being formed in a significant part by cinema, and I would have to concede to a similar idea. I could count on one hand the number of times I have really bushed it. It is interesting that the conception the rest of the world has of us is greatly infiltrated by images of the great outback, yet this reality figures on a microscopic level for most Australians.

I think one of the reasons for this is the uniqueness of our outback. Nothing much differentiates us on an urban level. An appropriate metaphor for this could be sought in the kind of Australian art that is recognised overseas (please note my hesitation in calling indigenous art, 'Australian', but for the purposes of being concise, bare with me). The art of figures like Shaun Gladwell, Tracey Moffatt, and Julie Rrap for instance figures in an incredible small way on the international art scene; mostly, because there is no recognisable style, essentially nothing all that unique. Aboriginal art however, possesses a totally new visual style and accompanying language.

Interestingly, this leads us back to something that has repeatedly been raised in our tutorials. The idea that perhaps the Australian film industry needs to develop a genre that it could specialise in. At the beginning of the semester, I was hesitant to accept this as a good proposition, but as the semester goes on, I see more Australian films in class (films that I have loved for years), I really am beginning to ask myself, "what are these films missing, why are they not competing overseas?" and perhaps the answer is, because they are too derivative (no matter how much they may subvert a genre) and do not require a new lexicon to decipher and discuss them.

Film Review ONE

Rolf De Heer's 'Ten Canoes' is an epic. There are multiple timelines, battles, spirit worlds, great teachings, wrong love, rugged landscapes. However this is an epic that creeps up on you. Before you know it you are deeply imbedded in a series of gripping narratives. And unlike most epic films it didn't cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

In Australian cinema this is a landmark film in many ways. The level of co-operation between the indigenous people of Warranmining and the white Anglo-Saxon filmmakers is worth noting. Also, this is the first film to solely use an Indigenous language. But, significantly for me, there are no 'white fellas'. And for this reason I hope it has evaded any comments from white audiences of "Oh, not another Aboriginal film". Ultimately, these comments are factually inaccurate. Perhaps this is the first authentically Aboriginal film. The films that are normally labelled Aboriginal films are simply films about Aboriginals.

The whole way through the film I kept thinking about funding. I'm sure that without government funding this project would have been incredibly difficult, perhaps untenable. I normally hate funding bodies, and their arbitrary content rules. However, if they have to make ten below average Australian films to mean that a film like this qualifies for funding, then perhaps I'm happy to turn a blind eye.

Perhaps, this is not a good way to look at it. We have been discussing film funding in our tutorials and perhaps a conservative/libertarian approach is the best one here. That is, a firm belief in the operations of the free market economy; in this case, no film funding. If our film industry cannot support itself perhaps it shouldn't exist. But where do you draw the line on this issue. Can you say the same for libraries, art galleries, etc. Ultimately very few people use these institutions, and some would argue that taxes would be lower, and more could be spent on health and education without these facilities draining fiscal policy. But ultimately are these institutions necessary for a healthy society?

All this aside, Ten Canoes, works. There is a great story, the visuals are fantastic, there is humour, and we genuinely worry about what will happen in both stories.

Week Three Response

Unfortunately, I have to start this post in a negative fashion. The first group presentation was given this week and unfortunately I think they missed the point of the week. Though it may seem semantics, the two girls hadn't quite grasped the difference between 'nationalism' and 'patriotism' and in reference to Gallipoli there is quite a necessary disctinction. I would hestitate to suggest that there was any nationalistic sentiment in the film, either as depicted during the Great War, or as it would have been received in the 1980s. However, the two girls continually spoke of nationalism in the film, when they should have been speaking about patriotism.

Every Australia Day, a new series of debates arise over the matter of our national identity and writers constantly try to pigeon-hole sections of our community under broad, general headings. Not enough is the complexity of this issue acknowledged, and I fear any national identity we do have is an intellectualised one, rather than an organic, naturally occurring one. Perhaps we are not alone in that; I'm sure the case is the same in the United States, and national identities are meticulously constructed in the few Communist outposts that still remain.

I love the film Gallipoli, and I qualify that by stating that most other discussions of the battle leave me feeling rather ambivalent. I feel no tangible connection to that past, and only through this film do I get a sense that, "hey, those guys are just like me", their humour, attitudes, and values. I think Peter Weir has acutely studied young men from the 1980s and transmuted those observations into the fictional characters of the film. As such, I feel this film works on two levels; it provides us with a reflection of who we are now, as well as commenting on the contextual issues of 1914-15.

I will clarify the statements I made at the outset of this post; With reference to the reading, I believe that nationalism is an externalised phenomenon. Whereas, patriotism is an internalised phenomenon, that perhaps can only be felt and thus shared by those who possess the certain qualities in question. It is rare that I feel patriotic, but watching this film I do; that is the power of films like this. These events which happened almost 100 years ago are re-contextualised to an extent that I can connect and identify aspects of my own character and milieu in the filmic world. To galvanise my point about patriotism, few other nations could watch the scene where the Diggers mount donkeys and mock their British officers; to understand this there must be a degree of self-reflection and internalisation that is fundamental to a sense of patriotism. Ultimately, these are the moments, the sensations the girls were hinting at. But to suggest that they are nationalistic is unfortunately just plain wrong.